How One Thing Has Led to Six Others – by Susan Siddeley

When I was seven I fished a newt out of the Conker Pond.Newton, I breathed, stroking his mottled green back,entranced by his crest.

As, years on, I was entranced by Gordon who came from Newton-Le-Willows.When Mum called Tea! that long-gone day, I left Newt in a puddle.By the time I returned, full of baked-beans-on-toast, he was gone.

Just like my bag, the morning I bent to select a pair of chopsfor Gordon’s supper. Worse, was losing a child for an hourin the subway. A child who might not have beenbut for an accident.

After Newt and the man from Newton-Le-Willows, I love the sea;the salt-spume tang that engulfs me in Whitby and Isla Negrawhen cresting waves pound cliffs, and cormorants cry.

The sea has the same effect on my kneesas the sherry with which Gordon plied mebefore the accident. When, to make things right, I sang the school songwhose words now bring the sea to my cheeksas I recall how we stood in assembly,all tunic and tie, and were promisedHonour before Honours – if we didn’t drink too much sherry,lose pets and small children, and the world seemed a sensible placebecause we kept to the left in the corridor and went to Italy to study Art.

Since cobbling a fishing net from a stick and a nylon stockingtrailing it through murky water, landing a creature with a flailingtail, seems one thing has led to another.

Susan Siddeley was born in Yorkshire, attended university in Swansea, then emigrated to Canada with her geologist husband. After various overseas postings, she now divides her time between Toronto and Santiago, Chile, where they’ve hosted several writing retreats. These resulted in four poetry chapbooks and a memoir, Home First.